Knowledge is the Foundation To Success  

Google is notorious for providing its users with free web-based products like Gmail, Google Music, Google Docs and the brand new Photovine.  While all these innovative Google products are robust, user friendly and easy to use, the Google tool that I use most frequently for pay-per-click (PPC) account creation and keyword research is the Google Keyword Tool.  This little gem of a tool allows me to plug in a specific list of words or phrases that I think people might be searching on.  Once the list is searched, I  can see keyword data on competition, global and local monthly searches, approximate CPC and lots more.  Google has recently made an update to the free Keyword Tool that was much needed and greatly appreciated.  Users are now allowed to search 2500 keywords and phrases at a time, a HUGE increase from the previous limit of only 100 keywords.

Why is this so great you ask?  Well, I begin my keyword research with root words and descriptive words.  For example, let’s say I am building a new campaign for a company that sells colored hanging file folders.  They have 20 different colors of folders and they can be called hanging file(s), hanging folder(s) or hanging file folder(s).  To begin the keyword research for this project, I would use an excel formula to create every possible variation of each color with each root word (yellow hanging file, yellow hanging files, yellow hanging folder, yellow hanging folders, hanging file yellow, hanging files yellow, hanging folder yellow, hanging folders yellow, etc.).  With 20 colors and 4 root words, this would give me a list of 160 possible search terms to research using Google’s Keyword Tool.  With the old tool I would need to paste the first 100 words in, star the ones with advertiser competition and/or search traffic, then paste the remaining 60 words and do the same thing.  With the new tool I can paste the entire list in one easy step – which is great!

Once I have several hundred keywords starred in the Keyword Tool, there is a “More like these” option which allows me to search for terms that are similar to the ones I have already chosen to star.  In the previous version of Google’s Keyword Tool I would only get search results for the first 100 keywords that I had starred, which was an inconvenience.  I would have to download the list, break it down into groups of 100 keywords and perform multiple searches again and again to get potentially great keyword suggestions for my new account.  With the new version, as long as my starred keywords do not exceed 2500, the Keyword Tool will provide me similar search terms for all of my starred keywords.  Hooray!

Another update to the tool that is worth noting is the “Group by” feature.  By default the Keyword Tool is set to “Group by None” but if you click on the dropdown, you can choose “Similarity to search terms” and the most pertinent words (keywords that include search terms) will show up grouped together below the search terms, but above the related keyword suggestions.  This is great for weeding through the hundreds of irrelevant keywords that the Keyword Tool often provides.

All in all, the Google Keyword Tool is getting better each and every time there is an update.  I am excited to see how it will progress through the rest of this year and beyond.  Keep up the good work Google!

If you have been to Google.com recently you have probably seen the latest innovation from the Google – Google Instant.  Joining the ranks of instant coffee, instant rice, instant cameras, instant mashed potatoes, instant Jell-O, instant oatmeal, instant messaging and more – on Wednesday, September 8, 2010 Google announced Google Instant.  Described as “an innovative new Google.com interface that creates an interactive search experience for users by predicting their query as they type and instantly showing updated results,” Google Instant boasts that it can shave 2-5 seconds off each Google search.  After some experimentation with the new Google Instant interface, I can’t deny – it is very slick.  How does it predict what I am going to type?  Apparently the Google Instant algorithms are just that smart.

After testing out Google Instant, the first question we had here at JumpFly was: “How will this affect the Pay Per Click(PPC) Marketing for our clients?”  With ads showing up before the entire search term was typed out, we were curious about the effect this would have on the number of impressions and click-through-rate (CTR) of our ads.  So we dug a little deeper and found out some details that may help explain Google Instant’s impact on PPC a little bit.

There are three different situations that Google Instant counts impressions:.

1.  Any click on the page – If the user begins to type a search query and then clicks anywhere on the page, an impression is counted.  This includes clicking on a search result, a sponsored link, spelling correction or a related search.

2.  Search selection – If the user clicks the Search button, presses Enter or clicks on one of the predicted queries, an impression is counted.

3.  ‘Three second rule’ – If the user stops typing and the search results are displayed for at least three seconds, an impression is counted.

That being said, we must anticipate that Google Instant will increase the amount of impressions received by the keywords in our accounts.  Hopefully this increase of potentially frivolous impressions will not have the negative impact on CTR that we would expect.  As we have talked about before, a poor CTR can be a detriment to Google AdWords Quality Score forcing advertisers to increase their maximum cost-per-click (CPC) in order to be seen in higher positions in the search results.

Only time will tell how Google Instant will impact the Google AdWords accounts of the hundreds of thousands of businesses who advertise their goods and services on Google.com.  Hopefully Google Instant will be a good thing, providing timelier search results to users and more qualified clicks to advertisers.  Fingers crossed – Google, please don’t disappoint!

Since coming out of beta testing in November, Google Sitelinks has become part of an interesting pay-per-click (PPC) tactic for advertisers who want to protect the keywords for their brand from other online retailers and/or competitors.

Sitelinks allows advertisers to place additional links underneath their existing text ads.  Instead of sending users to the default landing page, Google Ad Sitelinks will display up to 4 additional Destination URLs which allows potential customers to choose where on your site they would like to visit.  This gives users more control and allows them to get where they want much quicker than having to navigate from the home page to the specific section of your site they wish to visit.

In order to have access to this type of enhancement, your ads must meet a certain high quality threshold.  If your account qualifies, you will find this special feature under your Campaign Settings tab under the “Networks, devices, and extensions” header.  If enabled, you will have an option to click Edit next to the Ad Extensions section.  From there, you will be prompted to add up to 10 specific Destination URLs with custom link text.   Depending on the term searched by users, Google will decide which links are most appropriate to be shown and they will be displayed underneath your current ad copy.

Google Sitelinks are becoming increasingly popular with advertisers interested in both driving sales to their website and branding their company.  According to Google, companies need to have “extremely high” quality scores and top positioning to be considered for Google Sitelinks.  This is Google’s way of assuring that the true cream of the search query will rise to the top and attract the most attention to the Sitelinks feature.

In the days of fierce Internet competition, Google Sitelinks has become increasingly attractive to advertisers who need to protect themselves against retailers or competitor attempting to outbid them for the pay-per-click auction of their brand’s keywords.  The only drawback that I can see is that searchers will more often click on the sponsored link instead of the advertiser’s organic listing.  Good for Google, maybe not so good for the advertiser.

This is yet another reason to have a professional PPC Management Company in place to see whether using Google Sitelinks is profitable for your company.